Tuesday, August 23, 2016

Picture taken in 1966 during an idle drive on Velachery Road, towards Tambaram. The village of Velachery ended two buildings beyond my factory, after which the land sloped down from the road about six or seven feet on each side, creating an ocean during the rainy season. Today what was supposed to be the end of the village is a big bus junction, and a road leading to GST, the airport, and Nanganallur towards the west. Toward the east the same road joins Lattice Bridge Road via Taramani and OMR (Old Mahabalipuram Road), which at that time was a 15-feet wide, undulating, broken surface edged with unlaid Hume pipes for what was then called the Veeranam Project.

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Bhashwati wrote:

If your image is presented without its coordinates, it would appear to be a universe of its own.

A
harsh landscape, with jagged edges, many crater like formations and an
uneven expanse unshielded from blazing light (and heat it would seem).

However
the two visible human inhabitants of this world seem sure footed and
purposeful so the place cannot be entirely hostile to human life but has
human life been kind to it or has it bulldozed it into acquiescing its
multiple white black and grey nuances to the homogenised bland glare of
"development".

Also quite in keeping with the ancient photograph is the ongoing madras week celebration.

Monday, August 22, 2016

Please.But seriously, unless all life on the planet Earth ceases; ironically, almost certainly brought about by mankind, mosquitoes, together with many other elementary, rudimentary forms, with the last remnants of the DNA constituting any form of life leaving its vestige, mosquitoes would be among the survivors.So, what a wishful thought, or is it a dream. By the way, is the picture above a wishful thought, a dream, or, to mankind at least, a pleasant, even if momentary, reality?
-------------------------------hopefully you will find something enduring, although I am doubtful (!), in the following very vastly researched article from The New Yorker:

The Race for a Zika Vaccine http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/08/22/the-race-for-a-zika-vaccine

MY UNWISE DISPUTATIONSOVER THE NATURE OF THINGSAND THE SCOPE AND EXTENTOF ALL THINGS IN NATUREAND THE NATURE OF THE UNIVERSESERENE IN ITS VASTNESSABIDING TO ITS NATURENOT QUESTING, ASKING, FINDINGNATURALLY BOUND BYTHE UNSPOKEN, UNWRITTENUNEXPLAINED LAWOF THE NATURE OF THINGSFOR ALL THINGS:THAT IN THE UNIVERSAL SCHEMETHE NATURE OF THINGSCOULD NOTHING ELSE BUT BEWHAT IT WAS,IS, OR WILL BEWITHOUT THE AIDOF MY KNOWLEDGE OF IT

KNOWLEDGE INFORMS METHAT LIFE DID NOT ORIGINATENOR DEPEND FOR ITS EXISTENCEON INTELLIGENCE OR VOLITION

I KNOW ENOUGH ABOUT KNOWLEDGE NOWTO ENVY A DOG HIS WAGGING TAILAND OFFER ALL INTELLIGENCE IN EXCHANGE FOR IT

Saturday, August 20, 2016

Not to be confused with a the world's most popular and used tranquilizer, calmer, remover of irritability, with a very mild sedative effect.

The original brand name, as far as I know, when Diazepam was introduced by Hoffmann-La Roche, was Valium. Valium caught the world's attention and attraction; to a point where people began to pop in Valium or Calmpose (an Indian brand name for Diazepam) as readily as they did Aspro or Anacin.

The picture above is not connected with any one of these chemicals/pharmaceuticals. I took it by an accidental but timely click of my camera, either on the TV or my computer screen, and have no context before or after that particular image. I do not believe that it matters. What is important to me is that I found or created a tranquility with some artistic license, and am extremely satisfied because of its effect, at least on me and the people to whom I have shown it.

I am grateful to whoever produced the video from which this image was taken, and offer my good wishes to the subject herself as well; whoever, wherever either of them are. By happenstance, if they come across it, I request them to contact me so that I can thank them properly.

Thursday, August 18, 2016

Throughout India, whenever there is a sign that civil disturbance is coming: riot, a vehicular accident, a strike, a political procession, gangs of youths in an alcoholic stupor on motorcycles looking for a fight, a woman being harassed, a dead body on the footpath; it is reported that shopkeepers have pulled down the rolling shutters. Their doors are closed and locked. People lie low. They do not help the victims. They stand on the footpath or retreat to their homes to look fearfully or with vicarious curiosity from their windows at the outside world, to wait for quiet and safety to return.

I wonder, does this phenomenon of pulling down and locking the rolling shutters exist outside the borders of India? Does it belong to the South Asian region? Has it/will it, spread even beyond?

Great, congratulations, very good, dear Hemantha Kumar. I saw the film Badbaan (which was made by every star and singer, director, producer, making their contribution to the film without charge, because the profits it was expected to make were to go to the welfare of the junior-most staff at the studios, who worked on bamboo poles, holding lights, ropes, wires, and risking their lives.) While the voice for this song was lent by Hemant Kumar, the same song was also sung by Geeta Dutt. I saw it in Calcutta's Roxy Theatre (which is, as far as I know, still holding the record for running a film for more than four years: Kismet. At that time it was considered to be a great achievement), and this song made me cry.

Best,

Ramesh Gandhi

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Bhashwati wrote:

The storm has many eyes and each one is aflame like Shiva's third, wanting to destroy everything below.

The branches trying to calm down the rage of the sky are only getting singed as the flames blaze wilder and lower.

My impression only, sans science or reason.

Great capture as they say :)

i will say nothing about the text since that is an eternal refrain in the head.

Vanishing appears to me to be ice eggs nestling in a complex hydrological womb.

Pleasingly
soothing to the eye but almost ominous to consciousness because all our
pretensions notwithstanding, we are most certainly melting down with
the planet and faster than we would like to acknowledge.

Friday, August 05, 2016

This is a picture from the first color roll I ever shot. I was in Bangalore, and some friends took me to Chamundeshwari Hill. When I opened my camera bag I found that I had run out of black and white film; but there were some color rolls which had been presented to me from time to time by various foreign friends.

The rolls were probably eight years expired by then, but I took a chance with one of them.

Looking at this picture now, I think of the many tragedies around the world, especially in the Middle East: images which I see on TV, where violence has left behind destruction and ruin, all of the inclemencies that man invents and inflicts.

I wanted to make this picture look very large, and I think that I succeeded; but in fact, the opening was only the size of a brick which had fallen from the wall.

Monday, August 01, 2016

Shanti was the first housemaid I hired when I arrived in Madras in 1964; she stayed on to work in my house for almost fifty years. She was a strong character, with a sense of humour. She quickly learned cooking according to my style of Gujarati food, and advanced from sweeping and washing, to cooking, to essentially running the household just as she liked.

She eventually gave birth to nine children. When she had about half that number, I began to try to convince her that enough was enough. Then one day, my friend N T Rama Rao, the legendary Telugu film star (he had not yet entered politics) came home for dinner. Shanti was excited, and assembled her entire family to take his darshan. She was triumphant when NTR told her that he had even more children than she had, and that she need not listen to my family planning lectures.

Shanti grew old, and one day she had a fatal heart attack in my house. We still sometimes call for her by mistake, and only then realise that she has been gone for many years. She is very much alive in our memories.

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Anonymous wrote:

(Looking at your picture, Shanti) i kept thinking of the balika badhu photo

(http://rameshgandhi.blogspot.in/2015/12/balika-badhu.html)

so i checked it out. The striking thing is that while the young girl, who incidentally was placed on the inside of a window seemed hopeful and waiting, the one that has aged battling life on the outside, still does not appear hopeless and weary.